Well, certainly interesting…and a different approach. Not sure that anyone can predict the future, but it certainly will change the dynamic quite a bit and I am confident that this was factored into the decision and considered as tolerable or maybe even desirable.
This new opportunity means that in the end, the onus lies now fully on the developers. With all the infrastructure in place, they have the power and the duty to make the decision between working for bounties and ignoring bounties and work on that they want (and of course the two may intersect). I would be interested to here, how they feel about this: that suddenly the whole decision about whether this remains a volunteer driven activity or whether it becomes pay-to-play remains on the developers only. From the user side, seemingly too many of us have already spoken in favor of bounties (and no one spoke out against them when they were offered), in fact so many, that this scheme has now been established. Maybe the days of volunteer driven open-source are over…game theory would predict one possible outcome where we all can win, but it is not very probable, there are many more possible outcomes, where all of us will act rather in favour of personal short term interest and gains and sacrificing long term issues. But then, who knows whether this is a good or a bad thing in the end, we only can be sure that it will be different.
Anyway, I will be very curiously watching how the project will change. It will be interesting, things are always getting much more interesting once money comes into play, hopefully it will be good too.
This.
I truly believe we can only benefit from tools like Bountysource. I don’t think the developers will give up “free” contributions as easily as @sihui just expressed.
I won’t stop making my stuff (that may be useful for the community) just because other developer got paid for something. I’m also pretty sure that most contributors won’t be discouraged because of it as well.
Granted, I wouldn’t be that much involved in open source if I had no salary and some time to spend around technology 
At the end of the day we’re all making this happen because we’re driven by the community.
We all want to make openHAB better, easier to use, well documented piece of technology. We want to have a convenient tool to automate our blinds, cat feeders and lights. It already took a tremendous amount of men-hours to make it happen.
If there’s an opportunity to motivate more people to achieve a certain goal / implement a feature / fix a bug - why not?
If someone’s willing to pay for a feature - it’s ok! This is still an open source contribution and will push the project forward. It won’t be a proprietary code, everyone will have access to it afterwards and possibly reuse it in further goals.
I think this is a massive adventage over commercial solutions.
Cheers! 
This sounds like you are expecting another fork of the project???
I’m not. What I was meaning to say is that the features that have been crowdfunded will land in the same repository and further features (e.g. bindings, improvements etc) will benefit from them just like the other contributions. The source is still there for free.
By paying for a certain feature you’re motivating someone who has the time and expertise to code something.
Then it gets merged to the (same) repository and other devs can use that code same way they do with previous work.
Does it make sense?
If it really would go that way … maybe. But I’m in doubt!
I wouldn’t worry about a change in direction because:
i) Most of the development activity goes into OH2 addons and ESH and that’s provided for free from the contributors
ii) The use of BountySource is up to the end-users and the developers (it cannot be prohibited)
iii) The first OH bounty was posted 3 years ago and remained open/unclaimed for 2 years
iv) The only change that this post brings is the integration of github OH repos with BountySource and the reminder from @Kai that everyone can use it.
This is a good thing. Personally, I won’t be using Bounties but I support the idea.
I don’t believe that there will be a shift in the way that contributors progress the projects.
Thanks @kubawolanin. Good to hear that. We all come with a bias and mine
quite obviously I am afraid is a slightly cynical one.
I am convinced, just to state the obvious, that the outcome will totally
depend on our collective behavior. If we as user start throwing a lot of
money at my favorite feature, just because I want it and I can do so, and
enough developers are tempted to pick it up…we have a pay to play system
as those who work for free will have a hard time to justify this for
themselves.
Anyway, as said already, it is set in motion and we will see…I for one
do not have plans to offer bounties…it would spoil it for me.
This is also my strong believe. And all, please note that I actually didn’t change anything - bountries have already been around for long and my main wish is to define a suggested way how to deal with them, so that we do not see people arranging private paypal transfers on Github or opening forum posts asking for people who would develop something for them.
I also think that the impact is highly overestimated - bounties will stay a small side topic and won’t really influence the majority of the work. But honestly: Should we tell people like @sipvoip and @aaugustf that they should stop offering bounties? What reason would you tell them? I rather think it is great to have users for whom openHAB is so valuable that they are also willing to fund parts of the development.
Please also read this faq entry.
.Fully agree.
One small clarification question:
In theory, the result of the development work coming out of a Bounty will be made available to all as open source code (on the appropriate github repo)… correct?
(I know the answer is yes, I just wanted to double check 
)
It wouldn’t make sense for the developers to provide it as a closed source deliverable to the person who posted the Bounty. It would make it harder for them to maintain.
Yes: The prerequisite to claim a bounty is that the code has been accepted as a contribution to the project (and thus it is open source under the same license as normal).
Another side note on this: Just because someone puts a bounty on an issue, it doesn’t mean that it is going to be accepted by the project. It will always stay the decision of the component maintainers, whether a contribution is ok or not.
To sum it up: As mentioned above, I too had some doubts about this mechanism, but I would like to ask you all to just wait and see whether there is any noticeable impact. If you see concrete situations where it actually causes damage to the project, please raise this at any time and we can discuss appropriate actions.
I don’t think this will change the way openHAB will further develop.
Giants like Linus Torvalds operate on the same principles. The work may be funded but will remain open source.
We should not worry about this, we should hope that there is a chance that some parts might speed up!
Oops… I didn’t mean to start a war of words
Also did not know this was a reminder and already exists… “introducing” does not really fit the reminding theme…
The discussion is an interesting one, and for all it is worth, it has shed some light for me on this topic.
I reckon the key points to take away are:
a) code remains open source
b) maintainers control what gets included
c) a bounty can potentially progress a cause
And bounty or not… I would like to thank all for their work and support; without it, OH would have been the usual download you get in a whim and then figure it is too hard and forget about it.
I will try to just use BonutySource, my only issue is that it does not get much exposure.
I like this approach.
I’ll stay as sustaining member of the Foundation cause at the moment i don’t have enough time to invest it in the project.
Yeah - with the Bounties, i’ll have the option to force things with my money and the development goes back to OH!
Now if we could get this integrated into the forum…
I joke of course.
I’ll add my comments and agree with most. I see this as nothing but a good thing. People have been paying for the development of features as long as I’ve been using OH. All BountySource adds is integrating this more closely with Github and adding better assurances that the code developed gets contributed back to the project.
I really do not see the amount of money that is going to be involved will be large enough to impact the direction of overall development or this community at all. At least not for the foreseeable future. But the amount of money involved can help to satisfy motivated users by encouraging some developers to implement their desires.
I remember seeing all these same arguments against this sort of thing when Patreon came out. I’m happy to say that all these years later none of the doom and gloom predictions have come to pass.
Call me an optimist but I think this is a good thing.
Finally! I can now quit my daytime job and devote my life entirely to openHAB development 
Seriously though, I don’t think this will change anything. I’ll still be fixing stuff that I need fixed, I’ll help debug a rule here and there. Write some scripts, html, whatever to help others out.
I don’t think I’ll be coding for a bounty any time soon because I’m afraid that that will take the fun away for me. Then you get paid and it becomes work.
On the other hand, if it were for the candy bar…
I’d like to bring in another point from the “non-developer-side”: for me there are always 4 options in case I need a feature:
- I ask the forum and hope to find someone who is willing to spend time for my desired feature.
- I can forgo.
- I can invest money into another techology that is hopefully (better) compatible with OH.
- I can invest my money into a piece of code that solves my problem and contributes to OH.
For me it is absolutely an option to go with option 4. Instead of giving the money to a vendor I can give my money to a developer. I would even dare to say that this is the better option since
- it resolves my problem and avoids that I have 2 different technologies that are actually doing the same
- makes even the technology/product of the vendor better/more attractive
- gives something to the community
Regards
John
The second part of this is to also file a feature request issue on the appropriate repo. The forum is great for discussion and should be a first place to post, but if an issue isn’t created, nothing will happen.
I also think a issue is required to link up with BountySource.